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The scientific names of bees are fun because they tell you things about the insect you are looking at, including its relationship to other species.

English for beekeepers

Learn to love the scientific names of bees

11 months ago

8 Comments

14 min read

English for beekeepers

Beekeeping vocabulary: the best beekeepers get the words right

2 years ago

60 Comments

13 min read

English for beekeepers

Does honey flow from flowers? Never.

4 years ago

36 Comments

4 min read

English for beekeepers

Do bees have knees?

5 years ago

8 Comments

3 min read

English for beekeepers • varroa mites

Varroa: a mite by any other name

7 years ago

18 Comments

5 min read

English for beekeepers

Have more than one bee? Add an s.

7 years ago

64 Comments

6 min read

A pile of wooden Scrabble tiles: Using the right words like phoretic makes you a better beekeeper.

English for beekeepers

The vocabulary of beekeeping: phoretic

7 years ago

13 Comments

5 min read

English for beekeepers

Bee words having Latin plurals

7 years ago

22 Comments

3 min read

English for beekeepers

Is she a queen or just a female bee?

7 years ago

11 Comments

3 min read

Bees and their queen on a honeycomb. Pixabay

English for beekeepers • writing and blogging

Why we fear scientific names

8 years ago

6 Comments

6 min read

English for beekeepers

Consider the honeybee bee

9 years ago

29 Comments

4 min read

English for beekeepers • writing and blogging

Comb decoded

9 years ago

7 Comments

2 min read

A newly emerged mason bee peeks from its nesting tube. Rusty Burlew

English for beekeepers • wild bees and native bees

Is a solitary bee a mason bee?

10 years ago

5 Comments

3 min read

Bees and honey are popular wherever humans have roamed. Photo by David Hablützel

English for beekeepers

“Bee” and “honey” in 42 languages, just in case

11 years ago

8 Comments

1 min read

English for beekeepers • writing and blogging

English for beekeepers: basic terminology

11 years ago

27 Comments

5 min read

English for beekeepers

Hive or colony: What is the difference?

11 years ago

14 Comments

3 min read

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. This book started zillions of people on their path to beekeeping. If you haven't read it, you should.

QueenSpotting: Meet the Remarkable Queen Bee and Discover the Drama at the Heart of the Hive by Hilary Kearney. You have to be a scrooge not to love this book. It even includes 48 queenspotting challenges.

The Bees in Your Backyard by Wilson & Carril. If you have any interest at all in the "other bees," you need this book. These are the bees we need to save.

Manuka: The biography of an extraordinary honey by Cliff van Eaton. The discovery of manuka honey and its medicinal properties.

Regardless of dictionaries, we have in entomology a rule for insect common names that can be followed. It says: If the insect is what the name implies, write the two words separately; otherwise run them together. Thus we have such names as house fly, blow fly, and robber fly contrasted with dragonfly, caddicefly, and butterfly, because the latter are not flies, just as an aphislion is not a lion and a silverfish is not a fish. The honey bee is an insect and is preeminently a bee; “honeybee” is equivalent to “Johnsmith.”

—From Anatomy of the Honey Bee by Robert E. Snodgrass

The non-native European Honey Bee is the state insect of:

Arkansas
Georgia
Kansas
Louisiana
Maine
Mississippi
Missouri
Nebraska
New Jersey
North Carolina
Oklahoma
South Dakota
Tennessee
Utah
Vermont
West Virginia
Wisconsin

Not one native bee is a state insect. The closest relative of a North American native bee to make the list is the Tarantula Hawk Wasp, the state insect of New Mexico.

Minnesota now has a state bee as well as a state insect. Bombus affinis, the Rusty-Patched Bumble Bee, has been so honored. Good work, Minnesota!

Connecticut’s state insect is the European “praying” mantis. Although they are beneficial insects, they are not native to North America.